Uninvited
by Rhythmic5
Summary: They thought she would be out of his reach, that he wouldn't find her and use her as a game piece in his scheme for retaliation against them. Their first mistake was thinking they could trick the trickster God of Mischief. Loki/OC-Takes place before Thor.
1. I Feel You

**Uninvited**

Chapter 1

_I Feel You_

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><p>Summer.<p>

It had already begun, and she could tell it was going to be a long one. The June sun was beating down on her with a vengeance, even in the partially shaded spot she had found to sit. She shifted sluggishly on the sidewalk, inching to the side to find a cooler spot. The sensible thing would have been to go back inside, even if the air conditioning did only make a small difference. The only thing stopping her was, well, once she thought about it, she didn't honestly know. She had just felt restless, staying in the house all day. Of course she had only been home for a few weeks, but each day the restlessness grew worse and worse. She knew it would only continue. She groaned at the thought. She already felt like she was losing her mind. She had reached the point of imagining things. She had imagined a few nights ago that someone was watching her, but she knew she was alone. Her mom and her brother were both out of town and would be for some time. She also got a prickly feeling once in a while, like someone was near her. Yes, Kennedy was already facing the possibility that she would lose her ever loving mind before the summer was over.

Absentmindedly she fingered a thin silver chain that was hanging around her neck. Draping from it was a silver swan half an inch in diameter. She felt the abnormally cool metal and looked down at it, rubbing the pad of her thumb over it. For some miraculous reason it was always cool to the touch. She had been sitting outside for nearly fifteen minutes in one-hundred-and-five degree heat and yet the small metal swan wasn't the least bit warm. She closed her palm around it, enjoying the coolness. Holding it reminded her of her mom, who she was sure must have given it to her. The story was that she'd had it since she was a baby, and surely her mom had been the one to give it to her. She sighed. Her mom had been out of town for almost a week on business. Her brother was also gone, visiting his girlfriend.

Which left Kennedy there, sitting in the shade and wondering what she was going to do with herself. She was waiting for her friend to come over, but she wasn't expecting her till around seven that evening. Kennedy snorted at the thought of her friend, Erin. If there was anyone who could make her feel less abnormal, it was her. Erin understood her warped, off-color sense of humor like no one else did. Erin was also the one she could always count on, could always fall back on.

She had been beyond relieved when Erin burst through the front door at a few minutes past seven. If anyone else had been home they would have been appalled, but Kennedy was so used to having her around that she had told her before there was no need to knock. Only if she was the only one home, of course.

"I come bearing gifts," Erin said, smirking. Kennedy looked at the pile of stuff in her arms and shook her head. She really shouldn't have been surprised that Erin had brought it over—the one movie that the two of them had watched countless times and could never grow tired of. She also had a box of popcorn bags.

"You had a bad day, I take it," Kennedy asked, knowing Erin must have needed to de-stress.

The "look at all the fucks I give" expression on her face made it clear enough. "Work was hellish today. One of the kids has an ear infection and his genius parents decided to drop him off at daycare instead of taking him to the doctor." She walked into the dining room and set down the box of popcorn with a huff. "And of course, _he_ didn't feel well and was having a bad day, which indirectly caused the _rest_ of the kids to have a bad day, if you get my drift," she added sarcastically. "Let's just say I debated bringing margarita mix with the popcorn."

Kennedy nodded and laughed to herself. "I would have been perfectly fine with that."

"I know you would have. You, being the one person I know who shoots tequila like it's kool-aid, would have loved to watch me slowly drink myself stupid with only a few drinks." Kennedy merely shrugged, smirking. "You make me sick."

"I can't help it that I have high tolerance, which, I can thank dear old Dad for," Kennedy said, picking up the movie case and grinning. "Are you ready for this?"

Erin quirked a brow. "I'm _always_ ready for this."

Half an hour later found the two women in a state that would have led anyone else to believe that Erin had actually brought the margarita mix. The two were lyiing on their sides, each on separate sofas, laughing to the point of wheezing.

"Wait…wait!" Erin yelped between laughs. "Did you just see that puppet?"

Kennedy was massaging her jaw, which was aching from the laughing. "Which one? The lady with the big hat?"

"Nooooo! Okay, toss me the remote," Erin said, leaning over to catch it as Kennedy tossed it to her. "I'm rewinding this. You have to see this guy's face." She rewound it to the exact spot and pressed play. "Okay, now watch the guy back there with the big glasses. To the back-left." The moment they both saw him laughter peeled from them, causing Erin to collapse onto her side again.

Kennedy was wheezing so hard that her stomach was starting to hurt. She sat up, holding her abdomen and taking a deep breath. She was thirsty.

"You want anything while I'm up?" she asked Erin, pointing over her shoulder to the kitchen.

"Nah, I'm good." Erin rolled onto her back and laid her head back against the armrest, taking a deep breath once her giggles wore down. Movement in the corner of her eye tore her attention away from the television screen, drawing it to the hallway, which opened up into a corner of the living room. That's where she had seen it. There was nothing there though, not that there would be. She dismissed it and looked back at the movie on the screen, letting out a chuckle at something idiotic one of the characters had done. It was nagging at her though, whatever had caused the movement. She peered back at the hallway, not being able to shake the feeling that something had been there. But nothing was. The hallway light was off and none of the bedroom lights were on, leaving the hallway dark save for the subtle light that was shining into it from the living room. She stared curiously at the spot where she had detected the movement but told herself she had imagined it. She rolled her head back and looked at Kennedy from upside down as she came back out from the kitchen, singing an embarrassingly poor tribute to a Def Leppard song. Nobody else was there. She knew that Kennedy's mom was out of town at a business conference, and Connor was away visiting his squeeze. 'My eyes are tricking me. It's probably my damn allergies acting up again,' she thought, still trying to rule out seeing anything. She was staring at the empty hallway again (or at least, she hoped it was empty) when Kennedy sat down with her drink in hand.

Kennedy looked at her curiously. She followed her gaze to the hallway before turning back to her, one of her brown brows arching. "Dude, what are you looking at?"

"Huh?" Erin said distractedly. "Nothing. I just thought I saw something," she answered, sounding withdrawn.

"In the hall," she asked, pointing at the hallway.

Erin blinked. "Yea. I thought I saw somebody, but that wouldn't make any sense. I'm just crazy."

"You probably just saw the ghost," Kennedy suggested nonchalantly, taking a sip of her soda. This remark resulted in being pelted with popcorn.

"Man, shut up."

Kennedy grinned in a way that would have made the Cheshire cat crawl into a hole and hide. She dusted the popcorn off of her lap, only popping a few pieces into her mouth, and dropping it into a waste basket before returning her attention to the movie. Erin did the same once she'd stopped glaring at Kennedy, but her focus was still on the dark hallway. She had seen a shadow there. As much as the reasonable side of her mind was telling her she hadn't, she knew she had.

After the movie had long since ended and the two friends had finally wound themselves down, Erin left to go home, still feeling uneasy about what she had seen. Kennedy waved as she watched the black Toyota back out of the gravel drive and roll down the street. Turning off the porch light she closed the door, leaving the black night behind it. The temperature had finally dropped a little outside and Kennedy sighed, enjoying the cool night air against her back before the door closed. She shuffled back into the living room and turned on the stereo sitting in the entertainment stand.

_10:30 p.m., _the clock read.

She could feel the tiredness in her body from the day but she wasn't sure if she could sleep just yet. She grabbed a broom and swept up the remnants of the onslaught of popcorn Erin had attacked her with. Then she swept the remainder of the floor, partly because it could use the sweeping and partly because it would kill a few extra minutes. By that time the clock read 10:37.

She slumped down onto the couch, picking up the remote. She turned off the stereo after hearing the same three top forty songs she had heard earlier that day and turned on the television instead. Flipping through the channels, all she found this late in the evening were reruns of Family Guy and some low-budget knock-off of Cheaters. 'How does someone produce a low-budget knock off of a show that's already low-budget and low-quality to begin with?' she thought. With a quick, impatient exhale she chose a news program to leave it on and dropped the remote onto the couch. As the news anchor droned on and on about the latest political scandal, Kennedy decided the nightly news just wasn't going to hold her attention. Not that it ever really did. She exhaled again, wishing her brother hadn't planned his week away during the same week her mom was gone. She plucked her cell from her pocket and typed a text to send to him. He was normally a fairly fast texter and a pretty reliable responder, so when she didn't get a reply after more than five minutes she figured he must have already been asleep. Or busy. She shook her head roughly, knocking out the thoughts of what he might have been doing to keep busy.

_10:55p.m._

She could have gone to bed then, but she still didn't feel like she could actually sleep. Her eyes roamed around the coffee table before her, looking for anything of interest to look at or fiddle with. There was the usual: yesterday's paper and a newsletter from her brother's student council committee. There was also a thin, worn gray binder sitting under the newspaper. Kennedy picked it up out of her mounting boredom and opened it, instantly intrigued. It looked like her mom had drawn out part of the family's genealogy, but it only showed the most recent generations. Her eyes roved over the names of her aunts and uncles, cousins, and grandparents. She found the branch where her parents were coupled. She blinked, squinted, looked at the paper curiously, then blinked again.

Only her brother's name branched out from her parents'.

She could see where another branch, _her_ branch, had been drawn in but later erased. Her hand reached up on its own and cupped the swan hanging from her necklace as she studied it. She could faintly see where _Kennedy McGavin _had been tentatively scrawled down, erased, and written again. There were heavy smudges, like her mom had hastily erased it again afterward.

More than anything else she felt confused. Why was her name half erased? She frowned. Since her mom was clearly still working on it she brushed it off. It was still a work in progress, after all. Maybe the lead on the pencil she had been using was dull. She felt her head beginning to ache and shut the binder without giving it much more thought and turned off the lights and the television as she left.

After sleepily changing into a loose and slightly ragged t-shirt, brushing her teeth, scrubbing her face clean and pulling back her bedding, she collapsed. She laid back, adjusting her pillows beneath her head until they were just right. She then turned off her bedside lamp. But just before twisting the small knob she glanced around the half dark bedroom, letting her eyes inspect each corner and each inch of space. Halfway through her inspection she realized how ridiculous such a notion was, that there would be a need to check that she was alone. That was Kennedy, though. Paranoid that she was always in some degree of danger. Always wondering if there was someone in the shadows, watching her—someone she couldn't see but could see every move she made. It wasn't just the summer blues that made her feel that way. She laughed, shaking her head at her own foolishness and turned out the lamp.

With the room now shrouded in darkness she let out a contented sigh and rolled onto her side, holding a corner of her plush pillow between her hands. This was her favorite way to lie. It was the most comfortable. All was quiet save for the occasional faintly rumbling car as it passed by on the street. She could hear the night's usual symphony singing her to sleep: crickets, toads, locusts, and a melodic gust of wind here and there, rustling the leaves like tiny bells. It was all so soothing that Kennedy felt herself being lulled to sleep when suddenly her entire being became shockingly alert. She opened her eyes and pulled her knees up, curling into a ball. It felt like someone was in the room. She reminded herself that she was at home alone. Yet it was there, the feeling that she wasn't. It was almost tangible. She decided that she was just having a spell of rattled nerves about being home alone. She chided herself for letting her paranoia get to her again. Her imagination was getting the better of her. Still, she felt creeped out. She rolled over and turned her back to the room, pulling her blanket over her head and trying to think of anything besides the presence she swore she felt in her room. Luckily for her, sleep soon claimed her, relieving her of her discomfort.

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><p>AN

Here's the first chapter to the fic. I'm excited to post more of it and I'm even more excited to see what you guys think of it. Honestly I'm not sure how my adaptation of Loki will be received but I guess I'll have to let you guys decide that for yourselves. You'll see him soon enough but it will be a while before he makes a full appearance. However, I promise that if you stick with me, you will get plenty of Loki.

I should mention that this fic takes place before Thor. I have plans to make this into a 3 part series (before Thor, during Thor, and after Thor-Avengers) but I guess that will depend on how the story itself goes.

I should also mention that I'm taking some liberties with the Norse myths. But hey, it's fiction, right? It's all for fun. :-P

Anyway, I hope the first chapter didn't run you off. Leave me a review and let me know what you think!

Cheers,

Rhythmic5


	2. Call Me a Skeptic

A/N:

Hi! Here's my second chapter. It isn't much longer than the first, but the next few chapters will start adding some length. The beginning just kind of eases into it, you know.

I know the title is one of the least original titles ever, but it was chosen for a reason. A song by the same title kind of, in a way, helped to inspire this story. The song really sets a nice, creepy mood and the plot just kind of followed. I did have some other ideas in mind for naming the story, but this one still had the best ring to it. For anyone who's interested, I'm referring to "Uninvited" by Alanis Morissette.

Anywho, a little more creepiness happens in this chapter and, well, you'll see.

Happy reading. ;-)

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><p>Uninvited<p>

Chapter 2

_Call Me a Skeptic_

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><p>The morning came with a flurry of wake up calls. First, her alarm went off. 'Take A Picture' by Filter nearly made her fall out of the nest of sheets and blankets she'd slept in when it blasted off her right ear drum at nine sharp. A split second after she slammed the off button to silence it, the phone rang. She groaned, holding her head as she stuffed her feet into her house slippers and stumbled groggily to the living room. When she had made her way halfway across the living room it stopped ringing. She sighed, throwing her head back in mild frustration. Her head was still spinning. Then she heard her cell ringing in her bedroom. She rushed back with a muttered curse and answered it.<p>

"Dude. I think I'm going to have to cancel on tonight," came Erin's voice from the other line. Kennedy was quiet for a moment, registering what she'd said and wondering why she had to call her at nine in the morning to tell her something that could have waited till the afternoon.

"Oh? Why, what's going on?"

"Nothing big. My sister is meeting some friends and she wants me to watch my niece while she's out." 'Ahh', Kenney thought. 'Well, can't argue against that.'

"That's cool. We can chill anytime. Go have fun with your niece." The conversation went on a little further, but soon ended, leaving Kennedy mussing her hair and wishing she could go back to sleep.

That evening Kennedy stayed in and enjoyed a movie marathon. She plopped down on the sofa with a taco and a soda and popped in a movie from the genre most dominant in her movie collection: romantic comedy. Two movies into the marathon and half a bowl of popcorn later, Kennedy got up to sit outside for a while. The night had cooled deliciously from the heat of the day and she couldn't resist catching the last few minutes of the setting sun. Nothing much happened in her neighborhood except for the middle-aged couple next door walking their Dachshund down the street. Nothing exciting ever happened, really. The neighborhood was ordinary, low key, and quiet—qualities that Kennedy treasured. Once she had grown tired of slapping away mosquitoes and feeling them buzz around her head, she went back inside for another movie and the rest of her cream soda.

That had been her intention, at least. As soon as the hallway came into view Kennedy froze. "What?" she said aloud, jumping backward. She strained her eyes and felt her panic change to confusion. 'What the heck?' She realized that she had backed into the wall and slouched against it, trying to digest what she had just seen. She saw someone in the hallway. Or she thought she did. She couldn't have seen anyone. She once again reminded herself that she was the only one home. She rubbed her neck, knowing her paranoia was at it again. She knew she hadn't really seen anyone, but at the same time she was sure she had. _Had_ she?

She took a tentative look back. There was nothing there now, but there had been a shadow in the hallway. She was sure of it—right in front of her bedroom door. She no longer cared if she finished her movies. Kennedy wanted to get the hell out of the house.. in case she really had seen something or someone there. Reaching to the key rack behind her, her fingers felt nothing but the hooks. Kennedy cursed. Both cars were gone. She remembered that her mom and her brother had taken them. She went back outside and leaned against the columns of the porch, wrapping her arms around herself. She squeezed herself after realizing she was shaking. She really didn't have any options other than to go back inside and pretend nothing had happened. She couldn't bother Kate. 'It's probably just my imagination again,' she thought. After arguing with herself she went back in the house, taking slow steps until the hallway came back into view. It was dark and empty, as it should have been.

"There's no one there," she spoke aloud, as if it would calm her nerves. She took a deep breath and rolled her shoulders back before settling onto the couch and starting a new movie. Soon she was laughing at the foolish antics of the heroine in the film and she was able to relax again, but every so often she caught herself glancing back at the seemingly unoccupied hallway, secretly wanting to catch a glimpse of what she thought she'd seen before, even though a foreboding feeling told her that she didn't want to see it at all.

"It is way too hot to be running out there," Kennedy huffed as she opened the front door and held it open for Erin to pass through. The two friends had waited till an hour before dusk to take a jog, hoping that the day's heat would have diminished at least enough that they wouldn't have heat strokes. Texas summers were unrelenting.

Erin found a place in the floor and sat, stretching her legs. "Yea it is. It's gotta be close to 100 still, and it's eight o' clock."

Kennedy sat on the cool tile floor across from her, leaning forward and stretching her arms behind her back. It had been two days since she thought she had seen the shadow in the hallway. She hadn't told anyone yet, but she needed to get it off her chest. She was slightly reluctant to voice what she was thinking, though. She knew she would sound insane. Looking up at Erin through her lashes, she tried to gauge what her friend's reaction would be.

"Can I ask you something kind of weird?" she asked hesitantly.

"No, I won't give you a lap dance."

Kennedy slowly looked up, shaking her head. "Man, I'm being serious."

"Heheh. Okay, I'm sorry." She switched from stretching her right leg to her left. "What is it?"

Having stretched enough, Kennedy sat back against the bottom of the couch, taking a gulp from her water bottle. She let the cool liquid flow down her throat before she spoke. "Something kinda weird has been going on lately."

"Really? Like what?"

"Well, it could very well just be my imagination, but at night I feel like I'm not alone. Like.. like maybe there's someone else here besides me."

So far Erin's expression was thoughtful. Neutral. "Hmm. Is it just a feeling or have you heard something that might make you think there's someone there?"

Kennedy thought for a moment. No, she hadn't heard anything. But she felt it, and she couldn't ignore what she had seen in the hallway two nights before. "Nope, I haven't heard anything unusual. But I just feel that heavy feeling in the room, like I'm not the only breathing body in it. That and I saw something."

This seemed to stir something in her friend. Her sea green eyes widened, alert and expectant. "You saw something?"

"I know I sound crazy. Two nights ago I saw something in the hallway. I think I did at least," she paused, raking her teeth over her lower lip in thought. "No, I know I did. But as soon as I saw it, it disappeared. I know I saw it."

Erin sat rigidly against the wall, her eyes almost staring a hole through Kennedy. "Dude, I've seen something in the hall, too."

Upon hearing that, Kennedy felt her heart double a beat. "Wait, what?"

"Remember the night we were watching Team America and you saw me staring at the hall?" Erin watched as realization dawned on Kennedy's face.

"You saw it too." A shudder rippled its way down Kennedy's spine. "Could you make out what it was?"

Kate shook her head. "Uh uh. It was just like a shadow or a dark silhouette."

"It was just standing there, looming in the hall when you saw it?"

"Well.." her friend paused, "It was standing in your doorway." Both of them were quiet for a second, Erin waiting for her words to ignite a freak out in her friend and Kennedy letting the unsettling news sink in.

"Oh my God," Kennedy said, sounding as though the wind had been knocked out of her. 'There's no way…ghosts don't exist. Erin and I have just seen too many ghost hunting shows. We're both just getting carried away,'she told herself. "You don't think we've just watched Paranormal Activity one too many times?" she asked her, kind of hoping this conversation would take a turn for the better.

Erin shrugged her stiffened shoulders. "Maybe. Are you saying you don't really believe there's anything here?"

"I—maybe? I don't know! I don't believe in ghosts.."

Erin pursed her lips in thought. "Well, when you feel this presence, do you feel anything else? Like, do you get a threatening feeling or anything?"

"I don't think so. I guess that's good, then. So if there is someone there, I guess they don't want to hurt me. I guess if things start getting thrown at me I should probably start worrying, eh?" she finished with a half-hearted chuckle.

"I don't really believe in ghosts either, but if they do exist I wouldn't assume they're all bad. Maybe you have a guardian angel or something hanging around."

This idea was slightly comforting and the constriction in Kennedy's stomach loosened. Maybe that was it. Someone was watching over her while her family was away. That could happen, right? But who would it be? She never knew her grandparents, and other than them she hadn't known anyone else who had passed away. Still, the idea of having a guardian in her house rather than a fiendish spirit was less disconcerting.

That night she sat up in bed before turning off her lamp. She had a book open in her hand but it wasn't holding her attention at the moment. All she could think about was the idea that someone could be watching her. Or standing right beside her. They could be male or female, old or young. With innocent or malevolent intentions. She tried to reassure herself that she didn't have anything to worry about, that whatever was there (if she and Erin had truly seen it) was harmless. 'If they wanted to hurt me, I more than likely would have known by now.'

It was there, whoever or whatever it was. She could feel it. As much as it frightened her, she wished she could have some sort of proof that it was _really_ there. A footstep, or a handprint on her vanity mirror. Just some sort of confirmation. Maybe a knock on the wall. Kennedy had always been one who would take knowledge over blissful ignorance, no matter how much stress or discomfort that knowledge brought her. Knowing meant she could be in control. Knowing meant she could take care of herself.

She got the chills then. She could practically feel its eyes on her, watching her from wherever it was. She wished she could hide herself from its view. She knew though, that if she was really dealing with a spirit (_'This is just ridiculous. Spirits aren't real!'),_ escape would be futile if watching her was its intention.

Glancing at her clock, it was one in the morning. Feeling her eyelids drooping despite the wariness she felt in her bones, she laid down and turned off the lamp. She laid on her back, looking up at the ceiling through half-lidded eyes. The room was silent except for the usual sounds of the night outside her window. At this point, she almost wished she could hear the sound of a shoe scuffle across her carpet. Just to be sure someone was there and she wasn't just getting carried away with her paranoia.

Her brother had returned home the very next day, lightly browned from a week of playing in the sun. Connor McGavin walked in the front door and dropped his duffle in the entryway, sliding his sunglasses to the top of his head.

"Sis! Kennie, you home?" He shuffled in a few steps, looking around.

"Hey, you're back! How was Hill Country?" she asked, poking her head around the door of the kitchen and waving with an oven mittened hand.

"Hot, but it's okay 'cause I spent most of the time tubing," he grinned. "What are you making in there?"

Kennedy disappeared behind the door. "I'm just taking some brownies out of the oven. I was bored.." she said sheepishly. "Want one?"

Connor strolled in and eyed the fresh brownies. "Sure! But maybe after they've cooled down a little." He grabbed a cup from the cupboard and poured himself some sweet tea from a pitcher in the refrigerator. "You hungry? I feel like going out for something to eat."

Kennedy turned off the oven and set her mit back where it hung on the wall. "Sure, let me slip on some sandals." After sliding on some flip flops and grabbing her bag she followed him out the door and locked it, turning the key hard. Part of her considered the idea that someone may try to get in, still not completely sure of the whole spirit guardian theory.

Once getting into town they decided on a quaint restaurant in the downtown district. After circling the town square they found a parking space behind the bookshop so they could avoid paying for a meter. It was a Friday afternoon and everyone and their mother was out. Kennedy was never really a fan of crowds so she kept her eyes trained on the back of Connor's head as he led her through the maze of people. Anxiety crept into her chest but she brushed it off as her usual skittish reaction to being around tons of people at once. Finally they made it to their destination. Unfortunately, the mom and pop burger joint seemed to be popular that day. The two siblings ordered and grabbed a table for two in the far corner of the small restaurant. Kennedy still felt anxious. She knew she would have to deal with it, though. It was expected to be crowded on a Friday afternoon.

Their order number was called and Connor got up to retrieve it. Kennedy looked around as she sat, checking out the other customers. The silver lining of being out on this busy Friday was that she could do some Grade-A people watching. Several faces, she recognized. There was Phyllis Woodward, a woman she remembered who had worked as a secretary at her middle school back in the day. She recognized a couple of people she graduated with, too. They had fallen in with the whopping eighty-five percent of the town's youth who chose to remain after graduation rather than leaving. The rest of the people were unknown to her. That wasn't too great of a surprise, though. Over the past six years there had been a growth surge in the town's population from newcomers and people moving in from the surrounding cities. What had once been a small town where everyone knew everyone was becoming a suburb. Urbanization had invaded the boondocks.

Her eyes landed on a man who looked as out of place as anyone could possibly look in a hole in the wall burger joint in a small rural town. He was sitting at a small table settled against the front window of the restaurant. Kennedy lightly laughed to herself as she looked him over. He was sitting up with the most perfect posture she had ever seen. That was the first giveaway. He was wearing a powder gray collared shirt and a slate colored suit that had been tailored to fit every plane of his body. The jacket was draped over the back of his chair. A forest green scarf was hanging around his neck, hanging alongside the black skinny tie he was wearing, serving more as an ornament than for holding warmth, she figured. That was the second giveaway. 'Who in their right mind would be wearing a scarf in June other than the sweet elderly ladies in town who still dress to the nines before stepping out their doors?'To sum it up, he wasn't from around there.

He had a magazine open that he seemed to be caught up in and an empty plate sat before him, holding only a few lasting remnants of the meal he had partaken in. One of his hands encased itself around his glass, lifting it to his lips while he continued to read. The sunlight caught his hand and Kennedy felt her eyes squint. 'Jesus, and I thought Erin was pale. This guy could be her new best friend.' She was momentarily reminded of a joke she had played on her in high school. She and their friends almost had her convinced there was such a thing as lunar tanning..anyway.. About that time Connor set their tray in front of them, snapping Kennedy back to the present. She grabbed her burger and unwrapped it, taking a bite.

"Sow how's Andrea?" Andrea was Connor's girlfriend of ten months, who he had been visiting the past week. She was a likeable girl. She was a year older than Connor and had just completed her first year of school at a community college in a nearby town. Kennedy liked her. Or maybe it was more appropriate to say she was indifferent to her, since neither of them had really had much of a chance to get to know one another. She seemed to make her brother happy, and for now that was good enough for Kennedy.

Connor swallowed the bite he had been chewing. "She's good. Getting ready to start summer classes."

"Ah. Well that's good. She's getting hours under her belt and moving forward. Smart girl."

"When's Mom supposed to be home?" he asked, abruptly changing the subject.

Kennedy snuck a quick glance at the suited stranger by the window. He was looking up, having grown bored of his magazine. She couldn't help but to find some intrigue in this man. He had a strikingly attractive face. She could see that even from where she sat. It was strong with sharp angular features, a long pointed nose and a smooth pointed chin. Almond shaped eyes looked out from his pale skin and two inky eyebrows arched above them. "Any day now. She called earlier to check in. It sounded like everything was going well," she answered, stealing her attention away from the stranger.

Connor nodded and took another bite. "Are you going to take any summer classes?"

Kenny shook her head. "Nope. I have just enough hours left to fill two semesters so I may as well just stick it out. I would graduate next May anyway."

A slightly somber mood fell over the two. "Are you scared?"

"A little." Kennedy bit her lip. "Actually, I'm more afraid than I was before I graduated high school. At the same time, though, I'm kinda excited."

Connor nodded again and finished the last of his burger before taking a drink as Kennedy put down the last of her burger, feeling full. "You ready to get out of here?"

Kennedy glanced quickly up toward the stranger again, who was drinking from his glass and looking out the window. It was a bummer she wouldn't be able to find out anything about the man. She felt an almost hungry curiosity about him. "Yea, let's go." Following her brother out of the restaurant she turned to look one last time at the stranger before passing out the door. When she looked at him, she felt a jolt to see him watching her. For that briefest of moments, she felt more nervous than the crowd had made her feel. Her pulse quickened and her palms had begun to sweat. Something about the way their eyes had met unsettled her. His eyes were dark and focused on her in the way a panther watches its prey just before it pounces. Calculating. The way he had stared at her—no, _int_o her-had made her feel like she was the only person there. It gave her the downright creeps.

Once passing through the door she broke the contact and adjusted the strap of her bag across her shoulders. That anxiety she'd felt was still there, only it had grown tenfold. 'Don't look back. Don't look back at him.' Despite what her conscience told her, she chanced a look back at the window to find it empty. She stopped, staring at the place he had just been, her eyes wide with surprise. Just then a swift blast of cool air ripped through the air beside her. The combination of the chilling encounter with him and the out of place burst of arctic air was enough to make her scuttle ahead of her brother.

Connor laughed. "What's got you in such a hurry?"

She quickly made something up. "I just remembered there's a show coming on in twenty minutes that I've been meaning to watch," she said, grimacing at the way her heart was racing. "Come on, let's get out of here." Her mind was reeling with everything that had just happened. This time she listened to herself. She didn't look back.


End file.
